Bulawayo residents have received with dismay reports that the
Bulawayo City Council (BCC) is in the process of getting residents who exceeded
their daily water limits arrested and prosecuted. According to the reports,
this is meant as a measure to conserve water as the city’s water supplies have
dwindled following the low rainfalls recorded last rainy season. It is reported
that a list of such defaulters has been compiled and would be handed over to
the police for arrest and prosecution.
Residents say that this move by BCC is a sign that the local
authority has lost touch with reality and lacks any sense of morality. They argue
that it is ironic that the city fathers find it prudent to get defaulting
residents arrested despite the fact that it itself has not been faring well in
its quest to provide services. While BCC is quick to act on defaulting
residents, firstly disconnecting residents with outstanding water bills and now
seeking to get them prosecuted, it is slow to improve service delivery in the
city, with roads full of potholes, sewage flowing in the streets, rubbish
piling up in street corners and hundreds of households without access to clean
drinking water. Besides, it boggles the minds of residents how prosecuting and
arresting residents who exceeded their water limits will serve to conserve
water. How will it bring back the water that has already been used?
While Bulawayo Progressive Residents Association (BPRA)
acknowledges that prosecuting defaulters may serve as a deterrent for residents
to exceed their limits in future, the association believes that BCC does not
have the moral standing to initiate such a process in light of its own failures
and shortcomings. BPRA thus calls upon the local authority to come up with
alternative measures to conserve water and deal with defaulting residents. For
instance, BCC could engage in an awareness campaign on the importance of water
conservation. It is the association’s contention that the penalties for
exceeding daily limits suffice as a deterrent for exceeding the limit. BPRA
believes that the move by BCC to prosecute residents will only serve to create
animosity between residents and the local authority, which could prove to be
retrogressive.
Regards
Information Department
Bulawayo
Progressive Residents Association
Bus. Tel: +263 9 61196
Cell: +263 772 516 729
